


Not Forgotten, After All

by iamisaac



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 13:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5250605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamisaac/pseuds/iamisaac





	Not Forgotten, After All

Lily saw it in his face. She saw it in the tensed muscles and angry motions of his movement. There was no point in speaking to James about it: she could hear what he'd say already. “Oh, Pads is all right. He's always having moods.” James could be astoundingly thick when he wanted to be. Especially when he had something to feel bad about. Oh yes, especially then. Lily suspected – she hadn't asked and never would – that James had all too much reason for his guilt.

It was funny, knowing James so well and yet... well, Lily wasn't prepared (this soon) to say 'loving him,' but certainly she liked him these days; acknowledged he had a certain appeal. Because it wasn't as if she had an idealised expectation of him, as if she thought he was anything other than the arrogant, self-righteous bastard she knew. Lily wasn't under any false impressions about the boy she'd chosen to date. She knew him to be a self-satisfied pureblood, a confident (arguably, over-confident) boy who believed that his talents as well as his blood (not to mention the very fact that he was a Gryffindor) made him better than the usual hoi polloi of students. Logically, Lily knew he was everything she fought against, his dismissal of Sirius's feelings just another sign of his arrogance.

And yet – and yet... James had another side, one she hadn't anticipated. The side that made him clap Remus on the shoulder after the other boy had beaten the entire class to flinders with his spellwork, and say – his voice honestly thrilled - “Well done, Moony. Bloody hell, you really do know your stuff! Well, I know where to come for tutoring before the NEWTs.” The side that left him staring out of the window one evening, when Lily had come to check the common room was empty. She had seen tears in his eyes, yet when she had asked him what was up, he'd merely said “A casualty of war, Evans – another casualty of war.” Sirius had told her, later, that James's parents had been killed that day. His voice had been rough, as though the murder was all her fault; and when she discovered through the Daily Prophet that it was accusations of consorting with Muggleborns which had been responsible for the Death Eaters picking on James's family, she couldn't feel surprised. Was it really only two weeks since she'd brought her parents to meet his?

Years later, she had bitten her tongue as James invited – no, begged – Sirius to be their secret-keeper. After all, no one bore a grudge (and especially not Padfoot, darling Sirius, her son's godfather) that long. Her thoughts were bleak as James panicked that night, beseeching her to get away before it was too late.

Maybe Sirius had not forgotten, after all.


End file.
